Time

By Ameesha Raina

Time keeps running out on us. It decides everything for us, whether or not we like it. It is like we are under a dictatorship of time. It is thoughtless too. The only thing it cares about is it's pace. It is like a selfish friend who leaves you behind when you stop to tie your laces, on a pavement.

It makes things annoying in a way, because we dont know if the past is satisfied with our present. We keep unrealistic standards for the future and call it a 'dream' and when it is unattainable, we bawl our eyes out.

We don't hear the ticking of the clock at all times, though. We only hear it in the warm solitude of an empty house. The dread does not diminish on it it's own. It grows bigger and bigger until the frailty that comes with old age knocks us down, off of our senses. After which it starts diminishing and we only care about the end of the times.

Everything depends on time with a string, like the bob of a pendulum.

We value love but it also doesn't keep up with time. Time and love sprint together for a while. Buy we all know, time is the faster one, so it runs ahead and love tires easily. So, it stops, after a while. Now all that is left is remorse, guilt and pity. The feelings that romanticized versions of love fail to show.

We lose people to time. Time presents the people we hold dear in our heart, to death. One moment we have them in our warm embrace, the next they are just a fleeting memory. Time betrays us like that.

But still it isn't time that is at fault. Time withers a flower away but it also once bloomed it to a lovely blossom.

Mourning the dead might have become unbearable if time had stopped to check on us. Grief might have been impossible for us to go through if time had stopped for us. We may have never been able to move on from the mistakes we made, if time had stopped to see if we are okay. Life may have become a living hell, if time wasn't ruthless. Time controls us because it knows that we can't be in control of our lives. After all the essence of life is time.

We always need an external influence to get things in order. Maybe an accident, maybe a job promotion, maybe death of a close person, maybe a breakup. These are quintessential situations that we must go through. One might even say that these are the foundation stones of an anticipated character development and time ensures that we keep moving through them, until we die.

Time stops for the dead. It shows them mercy. It provides them a haven to rest up. The dead find catharsis when time ceases to exist. The constant running for a meaning less cause finally stops, because time decides to stop, to comfort the dead. Time is not the 'bad guy', it is just a grey character.

By Ameesha Raina